


Whumptober 2019: Human Shield

by whatsanapocalae



Category: Deus Ex (Video Games), Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Genre: Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, Killing, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-04
Updated: 2019-10-04
Packaged: 2020-11-23 20:48:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20895884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whatsanapocalae/pseuds/whatsanapocalae
Summary: Adam and Frank have to work together for a very physical job and they both have to do something they're uncomfortable with.





	Whumptober 2019: Human Shield

There was no point to it, a hacker in a place like this. He was able to walk Adam through changing the minds of doors and cameras and turrets, he didn’t have to physically be there for this. He could hack parts of their security from his apartment, it was that easy. He didn’t need to be here. There were people with guns here, lots of them, and Adam had a bullet proof vest and the ability to heal within a matter of seconds, but he was only one man and he was going up against dozens of these guys, security guards and worse. Frank could only imagine that they had their own militia, there were so many. 

Frank was another body, a slow, mostly human, body. He was keeping Adam back. They were getting in more fights than Adam usually did because the pair of them didn’t fit as easily in the ventilation system, couldn’t sneak as easily, and the first thing these guys had done upon realizing they were there was shut off the power to the elevator, so they had to inch through the stairwells that would only go up three floors before being on the opposite side of the floor. 

He couldn’t even help. He knew how to shoot, he’d gone to the trainings and studied it, but Sarif had only given him a stun gun for this mission. No reason for him to get his hands dirty, apparently. Adam’s hands were black polymer, that he shed just slipped right off, not staining, but Frank had seen how dirty Adam’s hands were. He was killing these men, he didn’t have much of a choice here. He was shaking, his teeth grit. He was pretending that it wasn’t affecting him. He’d killed before. Frank had seen how that ate at him, just those few that he didn’t have a choice to get around, either killed or unable to save. He’d been there for the nightmares, first over intercom and then in person, he’d been there for the drinking, he’d been there for the days in which Adam almost tore his augs out of his own skin. He didn’t care how dirty it was, he wanted his hands dirty, if it would take a single drop off of those artisan fingers. 

They rounded a corner, Adam blasting away with his assault rifle before it clicked uselessly. With a snarl he threw it, his aim as true there as it was with gunfire, beaning the nearest guard in the head with the metal shaft. (He should have been a baseball player, alive and safe, out in the sun, not here.) 

The sound drew more of them and there was no time. He grabbed Frank and shoved him against a wall. (Like at home, shoved almost too hard before fingers and lips could beg apology from him.) His hands were rough on him, his body tight and heavy. Bullets tore into him, like heavy punched through the vest but he was still grunting at the pain of them. Frank could hardly see, everything was dark because Adam was the darkness now, all grays and blacks covering what tan humanity he still had. 

A bullet went through somewhere else and Adam gasped, half stern half ragdoll against him. His chest was half pressed against Frank’s face and he could feel the heat coming off of him, could smell the gunpowder and blood. 

He reached around Adam, fingers quick, trained by hours at the keyboard, pressing buttons without looking, knowing where everything was. The pistol still had bullets. (Adam had asked him, over coffee, him standing in the kitchen in nothing but sweatpants while Frank read the morning paper, just how he remembered everything so easily. He’d only smirked and said that he only remembered what as important. He didn’t say that he remembered almost everything about Adam.) He pulled it from it’s holster and sneaked his head out from behind him, trying to get a glance at those firing at them. 

Adam’s hands were in fists against the wall. His breathing was ragged. 

There were three of them. Frank aimed. He breathed. (Adam’s hand at his elbow, his chin on Frank’s shoulder, his other hand at his waist. He was both aiding and distracting and Frank loved it. He told him how to breath, how to brace. They took the first few shots together and their aim was true.) He fired and missed, fired and hit the first of them in neck, fired and hit the second in the knee, fired and missed, fired and hit the third in the head. 

He waited a moment. The one with a bullet in his leg should have been an issue but he wasn’t causing any problems, not at the moment, anyway. He wrapped a hand around the wound and dragged himself back, raising his gun at them but not firing. Frank assumed it was a warning. 

Adam was breathing hard, not moving from his perch. His skin was sweaty and clammy, his eyes not really focusing, the gold rings in them expanding and contracting. He didn’t flinch but he tried harder to focus when Frank put his hands on his cheeks, lifting his forehead so it wasn’t against the wall. 

“Useless,” Adam breathed. “Got shot anyway.” 

Frank knew that he meant the vest but part of him knew that there was more to it than that. Adam was made into a killing machine, faster and stronger than any human had a right to be. He hated it, they both could tell (glass sparkling on the bathroom floor. Adam stepping on it with prosthetic feet like he had a million times. The office never had replaced the mirror) but it gave him a level of invulnerability. 

Because he had to protect Frank on top of doing his mission, the fact that it still wasn’t enough was becoming apparent. 

“We’re going now!” Frank shouted over Adam’s shoulder at the man leaning against the wall, arm seemingly too weak to hold the gun up while the other tried to stop the building. “Don’t shoot us because we’re retreating!” 

He didn’t. Frank was able to wrap an arm around Adam’s waist, the other on his elbow, and half waltz him back the way they had come. (He couldn’t dance. Adam couldn’t either. He’d seen him, when he thought no one could, dance in the living room while eating a bowl of cereal. Frank had felt a heat spread through his chest and cheeks at the sight. He wondered if he’d ever be able to dance with Adam.) There were offices and a board room and some bathrooms, but Frank led Adam to the closest of them. He did note the plaque on the door and chuckle to himself that they were holing up in the office of E. Toufexis, Head of Security. 

He took the vest off of Adam, hating to hear the hiss of pain that came from him as the kevlar slipped off his shoulders. He didn’t bother to take off Adam’s turtleneck, just tore it from the holes made from the bullets that had gone through the vest and into him, revealing rivulets of blood spilling from puckered wounds. Some had landed in prosthetics, others in natural flesh. 

“We need to get these out,” Frank murmured, trying to sound calm, calming. 

“Just leave it,” Adam choked. His hands were buckling the edge of the desk. 

Frank ignored him, starting to look through the drawers of the desk for anything that could help. There were a few energy bars at least, which he handed to Adam to gobble down. (In the right bottom drawer was an energy bar. At first he kept it there as an emergency breakfast since there were so many times he realized it was morning after a night of working. After the bar started vanishing though, paired specifically with his computer warning him it had been hacked, he’d started a little experiment. Adam would disable his security measures, break in, and steal his energy bars while going through Frank’s office. It became a second security system for him.)

He put a hand on Adam’s back. He didn’t have the tools he needed. He didn’t have the steadiness of a surgeon either. The wounds opened further and, slowly, the bullets pushed back along their trajectory, the wounds closing up in front of them. When he could get a grip on them he did, pulling them out of Adam like slick slivers before dropping them to the floor. All the while he was massaging circles into the untouched skin of Adam’s back. 

“You shouldn’t have come hear,” Adam sighed as the wounds began to close.

“That’s what I’ve been saying this whole time,” Frank rolled his eyes. “You’d be doing better without me here.”

“I’d definitely be less worried about you.”

“No need for that. Did you see what I did back there? I shot people. I can be a badass.” His voice was faltering while he said it, as the gravity of what he’d done started to settle. He’d done something terrible, those men, they were dead. Sure they were attacking him and Adam but, he had killed them. He’d killed people.

Adam must have noticed because he pushed forward with a slight wince, reaching out to wipe a stray strand of hair from Frank’s face. He was cold, starting to shake. He knew that it was shock starting to settle in. Adam was there though, kissing him gently, wrapping his arms around Frank and pulling him close, warming him with his own body heat. (So many nights he’d woken up to find Adam standing in the bedroom, or sitting on the edge of the bed, eyes open and staring at nothing. He couldn’t imagine how terrible it was then, to remember the lives he’d taken. He’d leave the warmth of the bed for the warmth of him instead, wrap his arms around him, keep him solid and stable, and, eventually, lead him back to bed.) 

“It’s alright,” Adam promised as the scabs on his back fell off and the scars were pink but fading. “It’s alright. Just a little bit further and we’ll be done.”


End file.
